From jihad to liberalism ... How did "Turki al-Dakhil" become a man of Zayed at the court of Saudi Arabia?

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On the same day that the former Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdulaziz died, on Friday the 23rd of January 2015, and immediately after his departure, his successor and his crown prince, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, took swift measures to protect his new throne from circles. Abdullah "Al-Qadima", by removing him from those who were called at the time by the men of "Mohammed bin Zayed", the Emirati Crown Prince, at the Saudi Court, starting with his dismissal of the chief of the royal court and the influential people at the time, "Khaled Al-Tuwaijri", who was then considered a close associate of "Ibn Zayed" And it is not the end of the marginalization of "Miteb bin Abdullah," the son of the late Saudi King, who was enjoying Good relations with the Emiratis as well; however, as it became clear after that, the rapid movement was moving towards the overthrow of the ancient circles of the late King, in no case a counter move to Abu Dhabi, and to chart a path of friendly relations between the two Gulf neighbors that extended to be recently reflected in the clearest picture through the direction of the Saudi crown prince The current "Mohammed bin Salman" by appointing him to "Turki Al-Dakhil", the nephew of the mother of Prince "Miteb", and the former director of Al-Arabiya channel known for his close ties with both bin Zayed and Ibn Salman alike, in the position of the Kingdom's ambassador to the UAE on the tenth of February .

In a diplomatic precedent, the intruder handed over his credentials as an ambassador to the Emirati Foreign Minister "Abdullah bin Zayed" himself, less than 24 hours after the first oath was taken in front of the Saudi monarch, and let the "intruder" end his day by thanking the Foreign Minister for "honoring" him by giving him an intermediate date His commitments at the World Government Summit in Dubai to receive a copy of the credentials, which raised the ire of some Saudis for what they touched on his words of dependence on the Emirates [1], and despite the passage of what happened after a few days of last week, the noise of the "intruder" began three days before his appointment And in a completely different place, in the United States.

At that time, on February 7, the New York Times [2] revealed leaks of a conversation between "Ibn Salman" and a senior aide in September 2017, a conversation that the NSA had intercepted and recorded as part of an analysis. The agency has conducted all of Ibn Salman's talks over the past years. In the conversation, Ibn Salman told the second party that the Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, should be brought into the kingdom, and if that did not work, he must be "returned by force", and if the force did not succeed, he would pursue him - that is, bin Salman - with a "bullet", and, paradoxically, he was the government official A high-ranking party to the conversation is Turki Al-Dakhil himself, who became an ambassador and mediator between his country and the Emirates, his first cultural incubator.

From Afghanistan to the Enlightenment

In the eighties of the last century, and when the kingdom was like a “backyard of Afghan jihad,” according to al-Dakhil’s description in his book “I was in Afghanistan,” the book he later authored during his visit to Afghanistan in the 1990s, as a journalist looking for personal glory, not a jihadist, he says. And published it ten years after his trip to Afghanistan, during that period and during the intermediate school stage that preceded his trip to Afghanistan, a young Turkish man born in 1973 was bargaining his mother over the study in exchange for allowing him to go to jihad in Afghanistan, and the "intruder" returned that bargaining for him and others Saudi youth at that time were In the "Crosshairs of Afghan jihad leaders' lectures in the mosques of Riyadh and other major Saudi cities", lectures were urged by young leaders to jihad with money, soul and feelings [3].

Al-Dakhil’s university study was in the College of Fundamentals, Department of the Sunnah, Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University, and he started his journalistic career as a writer for Al-Riyadh Newspaper from 1989 to 1992, then a political editor in Al-Hayat newspaper from 1995 to 2002, and a political reporter For MBC Radio for another three years, he then moved on to presenting the “Illuminations” program, which lasted a full decade from 2003 to 2013 [4], an extended first media outlook in which the intruder “the religious person appeared before reaching the dream” [5], according to his description of himself in One of his interviews, in which a liberal emerged criticizing Salafi militancy.

This decade was not only full of the appearance of the media intruder, but also the creation of parallel works, on top of which was the “Al-Mabar Center for Studies and Research,” which the Emirates took in 2005 and its head of the intruder naturally, likening himself to “the conductor of the orchestra”, [6] In cooperation with its researchers, to monitor a reality from which the center selected the study of Islamic movements and the cultural phenomena emanating from them in general, with its intellectual and socio-political dimensions, with particular attention to contemporary Islamic movements, intellectually, practicing and symbols, and its interest in studying movements of a historical nature whenever their influence is present in reality [7] ], And manifested This is due to the titles of the Center’s publications since 2007, such as “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”, “The Muslim Brotherhood”, “Hamas”, “The Jihad Group in Egypt”, and “The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria”, and not ending with “The Islamic Movement” in Israel".

It is worth noting that there is an unresolved controversy about the center’s agenda and its taking of hostile stances from “dynamic Islamists” [8], with what some consider to be “abuse” of Saudi Arabia and “incitement to it” based on the ideas and principles of its elders in various ways, including the completion of some of the center’s researchers to study It was not published on "Violating the Rights of Shiites in Saudi Arabia," a study that was sold to Iran, which is currently using it in its media and diplomatic war on Saudi Arabia, according to some activists of the social networking site "Twitter" [9].

In 2006, the Center began taking over the task of preparing the "Death Industry" program that was shown on Al-Arabiya, and the new program was concerned with analyzing and criticizing "jihad and jihadi movements", treating them as "terrorist extremist movements that export death and violence." In 2011, during his periodic appearance on Al-Arabiya TV, Al-Dakhil received a master’s degree in Islamic Studies from the “Makassed University” in Beirut with a very good degree for his thesis: “The Cornerstone of Salman Al-Awda: A Comparative Analytical Study”, which he later printed entitled: “Salman Al-Awda From prison to enlightenment, "under the supervision of the famous Lebanese thinker" Radwan El-Sayed ".

The message revolved around observing the societal and cultural process of "Islamization" in the Kingdom, taking the "cornerstone" program as a model with a focus on the famous Saudi Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, "who was and still is overwhelmed by the presence and influence of various decades and contradictory ideas," says the intruder. In the introduction to his book [10], he is the preacher who was arrested by the Saudi authorities in 2017 with a number of Saudi preachers who have a different view of the way the kingdom is managed, and they have some criticisms and reservations about it. [11]

Al-Dakhil’s media career ended with his appointment as director of Al-Arabiya in 2015, and then he was dismissed from his position early this year due to a “confusion” in media policy that the channel suffered after the assassination of “Khashoggi,” which prompted Saudi voices on the communication sites to demand improved media performance for the Kingdom, It is a performance in which the intruder received his share of criticism regarding him, especially after he wrote an article in the newspaper "Al-Sharq Al-Awsat" after angry international reactions to the assassination of "Khashoggi" in which he threatened the United States with Saudi countermeasures if the first imposed sanctions on the kingdom [12].

In the corridors of politics

In April 2016, Ibn Salman, Minister of Defense and the rising crown prince at the time appeared in his first TV interview to present his economic vision known as “Vision 2030”. The interview was exclusive to Al Arabiya TV, and with the media who accompanied Ibn Salman in His foreign trips, especially when signing new international agreements, and who knows that he is the one who can access the most exclusive information within the corridors of the Saudi royal court, and that media was of course "the intruder".

When Ibn Salman spoke in the interview about the support that should be directed to middle-income earners and those who are just below them, the intruder wanted to include himself with the middle-income earners awaiting support, so Bin Salman hinted in a semi-joking formula that he would not speak publicly about the wealth of the intruder, the matter Who clarified the close relationship between the two men, and at the same time raised media questions about the income of the intruder and the wage he is receiving in light of being one of the most important "propaganda propaganda machines" that promote the policies of austerity among the citizens of the Kingdom.

Almost two months later, at the end of June of the same year, and after the appointment of "Ibn Salman" as the crown prince one week, "Al-Dakhil" was appointed director of Al-Arabiya Channel, and with "Ibn Salman" graduated in the ladder of internal authority in the Kingdom as Crown Prince, Minister of Defense and Secretary General of the Bureau Royal, then crown prince, "the intruder" was graduating with him until he returned in various circles to the status of an actual and informal adviser to the influential young prince, "wrote Simon Henderson, a researcher at The Washington Institute [13].

But the unofficial adviser, as he is called, does not limit his influence to the Saudi royal court only. Al-Dakhil has always been known for his strong ties with Al Zayed, which he implicitly affirmed himself when the Middle East Observer newspaper quoted a statement from the intruder saying he was not working. Adviser to Mohamed bin Zayed, but he has good relations with him. In searching for what these good relations are, we find that there are financial links between "Ibn Zayed" and the intruder revealed by the newspaper. On October 22, 2012, Ibn Zayed transferred 1.1 million dirhams, about $ 316,000, to the personal bank account of the intruder. In July of 2014, the intruder also received a money order from Ibn Zayed, amounting to approximately $ 633,000. As for the qualitative shift in the balance of the intruder, the value of the investments recorded in his name, which jumped from about 8.4 million Saudi riyals, on February 15 In 2015, to 94 million Saudi riyals on August 13 for the same year, an increase of more than 11 times in just six months Shift "Middle East Observer", an increase that raised questions when published, as it is not likely to generate the core of his career as a journalist for a famous condition.

This escalating fiscal surplus resulted in the June 21, 2015 purchase of a property in Dubai Marina for AED 17 million, or about $ 4.6 million, and the purchase of two properties on a project called "River Light" that is still under construction in London. With a value in excess of three million pounds sterling, a period that saw intense activity of the intruder in promoting austerity policies for the Saudi regime and inviting the Saudis to accept it as we mentioned [14].

Most likely, the recent coronation of the intruder as an ambassador between Saudi Arabia and the Emirates is not the beginning of a path that he might have aspired to, as much as it is the harvest of an old effort that brought him close to the Muhammad to the same degree, and the place of their trusts, and almost always recipients of financial and functional gifts, an effort that he nominated relatively easily to be The unanimous character of the political practice between the two bitter countries, but that proximity may cause in the future to dispense with the intruder and sacrifice him as a sacrifice for the fires of the roots of hostility between yesterday's factions, today's alliances, especially in light of the constant fluctuations between his country and his sponsor of his intellectual and financial projects, which are fluctuations in me Allies gradually find themselves face-to-face, day after day, in the most important zone files at all.